RE-IMAGINED: VIDEO GAMES AS CULTURE.

It's been quite a while since I posted. The last posts stopped right around the time when the realities of the new semester started to really kick in here. I teach video production and video editing at Kyungsung U., a decent-size Liberal Arts college here in Busan, South Korea., and with many new, rosy-cheeked faces to greet, things slowed down a little quite a bit on the RE_IMAGINED side (and this site) At Kyungsung University's Concert Hall, is also where the RE-IMAGINED special program will be shown. Here' a short description of the place (it's nice):

The Kyungsung University Concert Hall is located in Kyungsung University, and was opened in 1983. The Small Concert Hall has 449 seats, the Small Stage 230 seats and the Multimedia Hall 194 seats. The Concert Hall is often used for contests, plays and art youth's performances, ranging from live music to dancing..

As we get closer (22days and counting) I'm getting really excited about how people will react to the screenings.. Not sure if anyone showing their work at the Re-imagined program knows this, but Busan (formerly romanized as Pusan) is also the location of the most important film festival in East Asia, PIFF or Pusan International Film Festival.
We're in good company.
TTYL, Misha

I thought I'd throw some links to some unique video games that I've come across on the net. I'm drawn to these examples because they completely explode the stereotypes of both games and consequently, expectation about the gamers who play them. Over the last few years there seems to have been a surge in creativity, capital investment and in people taking games much more seriously. This has lead to even contradicting results in so far as while some companies have started using video games as an advertising platform, still other producers have created games to satrize and political criticize those companies. Game war in the political/adverstising space, hmmm.

Regardless of interests, with the growth of games things also seems really to be happening in regards to independent games such as this one pictured below. MPTY (More Power To Ya).
Get your biting satire here: McDonald's Video Game

Politicized parody game about running the huge multi-national food giant.

Politgames and Propagames (political and propagandistic games...) have now been around for a few years. In 2002, the U.S. launched its video game that brought the first tax-funded first-person shooter to the world. "America's Army" is free to download and is intended as a vicarious and glorifying Army experience, now even available on mobile phones...


The battle for young minds via the game space seems to be going full tilt when you also take in to account, the almost opposite game offered up on the net for download. By downloading the United Nations' "Food Force", you can get a sense what is involved in running humanitarian rescue missions while having to contend with hunger, war other obstacles. Reportedly the game is challenging and experienced record downloads upon becoming available. Encouraging.

Links:
Satirical McDonald's game: http://www.mcvideogame.com/
America's Army: http://www.americasarmy.com/
U.N. Food Force: http://www.food-force.com/